March 9, 2003
Hellfire
I would like to write about Waffle House. I would like to write about Mike and I swinging our feet together under the table, my brother reciting Rodney Carringtin routines while my Dad laughs so hard he cries. I would like to write about near-to-thirty year old Fred trying to pick up on the waitress who could not have been too much older than me. Mike making his breakfast stew, as per usual, the five of us swilling decaf, littering the table with creamer containers. Before we leave, we all toss dollar bills on the table, accumulating a tip our server likely did not expect.
I am dragged out by my brother, upside down on his back, and under the gold and black eaves we mock-fight like we did when we were kids. Mike comes to my rescue, carrying me on his back to the truck.
It was just as it should've been, really. Mike and my father talking without the pressures of my mother's eyes and expectations. I love my mother, but this aspect of my life is so much easier when she is not around.
Others, of course, are not.
That was Friday, post seven hour shift at the Roadhouse, which was not technically supposed to be my shift at all. John, our manager, being the kind, Christian gentleman that he is, sent Amanda home so that I could work her station, as some sort of strange punishment. It didn't hurt as much Friday as it did yesterday.
Again, last night, when my scheduled duties lay elsewhere, John put me in a station. The same exact station. I am slammed with huge parties of old people and kids, the old people ordering exotic drinks and demanding separate checks for twelve, the kids taking two hours to eat what the adults would polish off in fifteen minutes.
I try to suck it up.
It's only after the second rush, and third and fourth and fifth rush taking us into ten o'clock and we still have a wait, and my parties have decided that my station is actually an extension of the bar where they can order beer and appetizers and toss me a couple of bucks, that I feel like I am going to scream and cry and tear my hair out. My outwork is accomplished at a painstakingly slow rate. I roll all my silverware when I get a chance, place it under the silver table with a note: "Jillian's, please do not take."
I rolled 20. I returned later to find three.
I ordered myself dinner only to have it disappear. I asked the two ladies who had been in my station for roughly three hours if they would mind moving to the bar. They declined, and ordered more alcohol. I felt like either a) throwing it in their faces, or 2) asking them if they'd like a fucking complimentary chocolate on their pillow.
I gave Brian a few dollars to clean their table when they left, and proceeded to cash out. As per usual, when counting my money down to give to the allmighty Texas Roadhouse gods, I stripped down to the end of the twenties before what was left was to be my tips. I made 58 dollars. Combine that with the 50 I made yesterday, and boy my weekened is a miserable fucking waste considering the rest of the house likely broke one hundred.
Hope promised to give me today off, only to later tell me that she just needed me to show up, in uniform, for business purposes. Why do I have the sinking suspicion I'll arrive and be required to take the floor?
Why do I think that I am going to show up in street clothes and tell Hope to fucking shove it, I quit?
Well, because both are likely going to be the case.
So I'm impulsive.
astera at 11:01 a.m.